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The Canadian beauty brand that’s responsible for The Ordinary, that wait-listed foundation everyone goes crazy for, is having some seriously confusing dramz. We break it down for you here

Cult beauty products are nothing new, but a less common thing is a Canadian cult beauty product that rings in at $6.70. That’s what The Ordinary pulled off last year when it launched its , which reportedly has a current wait list of 75,000. It’s the topic of forums like Bunz Makeup Zone and threads on Reddit, too. Even , and shared on her app earlier this year that she uses the brand’s Granactive Retinoid 2% Emulsion daily. But what’s started to overshadow this homegrown success story is the recent social media activity of the CEO, Brandon Truaxe.

Truaxe founded Toronto-based Deciem in 2013 with ten sub-brands, including The Ordinary, keeping prices low by sourcing high-quality but still accessible ingredients. Deciem does all of its formulating and production in-house, which is part of what has caused the massive back orders for the foundation and other products.

Nicola Kilner, Deciem’s co-CEO, in December that business quadrupled over the previous 18 months, rising from two million units sold in the first three years to eight million units last year alone. The company has also grown from a team of 100 to 500, and recently acquired Estée Lauder as a minority investor. This past year was clearly a busy one for Deciem, but Truaxe has started to lead the brand down quite a different path in 2018 thanks to his social media activity.

It started in January when Truaxe took over and things got… weird. Followers noticed something was up when he made a at competitor brand, Drunk Elephant, saying “one would have to be drunk to overpay for Marula.” (Drunk Elephant sells a similar marula oil product to The Ordinary, but charges almost ten times as much.) That led to a rambling, confusing apology along with a pledge to donate $25,000 to an elephant charity. ‘Cause, sure, why not.

A post shared by (@deciem) on Jan 28, 2018 at 8:53pm PST

Then, things got even weirder. Truaxe started using Instagram to send out what in any normal world would have been internal company memos, announcing that he was severing ties with one of his UK-based partners, Dr. Tijon Esho (allegedly without notifying Esho first), and began posting a series of pictures of garbage and dead animals while on a trip through Africa.

Amidst this insanity, people began to dig up of bullying, harassment and nepotism within the company. As followers posted about this and other concerns in the company’s Instagram comments, Truaxe took it upon himself to reply, often with confusing and insulting responses.

Here’s where it gets really ugly: Over the weekend, one user, @supermormongirl, commented “Brandon, are you okay??” to which Truaxe, using the company handle, replied, “@supermormongirl Yes but you don’t seem so well. Please use Modulating Glucosides when it’s out. Goodbye.”

This would be considered harsh under any circumstances, but because the commenter is a woman of colour, Truaxe is now facing allegations of racism for suggesting she use the forthcoming product, which contains the skin-lightening ingredient Ascorbyl Glucoside. (Deciem has responded to say that it doesn’t, in fact, contain this ingredient.)

In the early hours this morning, Truaxe posted a picture of himself feeding a gazelle (’cause, again, sure why not), with another long-winded caption that attempted to excuse his comment, claiming “Modulating Glucosides calms things down and does not ‘bleach’ the skin. I’m sorry that I may have caused confusion about its function.” Note, he didn’t actually apologize for insulting a customer.

A post shared by (@deciem) on Feb 12, 2018 at 10:23am PST

Then later in the afternoon, Truaxe doubled down on his insistence on being “real” on the company’s social accounts, claiming “Manicured reality isn’t reality at all.” Clearly this shitstorm is far from over.

On February 22, the plot thickened when reports emerged that Truaxe’s co-CEO, Nicola Kilner, was no longer with the company. According to , Kilner, who had been with Deciem “since almost its inception,” confirmed this news via text message writing, “Sadly yes. I’m too heartbroken to talk about it at the moment.” Racked reports that while they received a tip that Kilner had been let go, a PR rep for the company said this was “unconfirmed.”

FLARE reached out to Deciem for a statement prior to Kilner’s departure, but the brand declined to comment.

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